Helltown by Casey Sherman is the true story of Tony Costa, the Cape Cod serial killer. I sometimes find true crime books hard to get through, especially when they read more like a news article or a textbook than a novel, however being from the Cape Cod area I was excited to read this one. The beginning of the book has a lot of backstory about Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer, and just small short mentions about what Costa was up to. Once the three stories overlap, the Vonnegut and Mailer sections make sense. I really started to get invested once the book shifted to be more about Costa and his attempts at evading and deceiving police. While I did overall enjoy this book, my only real complaint was the dialogue - much of it was stilted and hard to read as actual conversations.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of Helltown for my honest review.

I was not familiar with this crime but found the mind of this killer was frightening. I was distracted by the side stories of 2 authors but midway it was revealed how they fit into the story although I don’t think it added much. This authors ‘s descriptions of the conversations between the killers personalities was important and helpful in understanding the inner turmoil this guy was going through. 1969 was a strange time to be alive, sex, drugs and alcohol were were rampant and I’m sure caused part of the issues surrounding this case. A very interesting case that got lost by the Charles Manson massacre

HOLY CRAP! HOLY 👏🏽 CRAP 👏🏽

I don’t do true crime. I hate gore, blood, murder, etc. I’m clearly a lover, not a fighter… so when I saw the cover of this on Netgalley, I said to myself, “Let me request this and see what it’s about.” LUCKY ME because they were like, “Yasssss, Queen, here you go!”

And so, I downloaded the book… and was bored for like the first 3-5 Chapters. I couldn’t really figure out why we were talking about Kurt Vonnegut or some guy named Norman Mailer. I was clearly bored because I wanted it to live up to my typical romance novels but I had to remind myself this was true crime not romance… so I kept going and did this book take me on an emotional rollercoaster and then everything started to click and tie together 😳 I stayed up super late the first night because I couldn’t put it down and read EVERY chance I had the 2nd day to finish it up. Talk about being SHOOK! I loved it! I knew nothing about Tony Costa until now and I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone and took a chance on this because it was well worth the read!

It has angst - romance - sadness - family - travel - murders - a trial - taxidermy - and a lot of suspense.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”